The Footnotes of Wrestling: Randy Orton’s Not Winning at Royal Rumble 2011

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Not if history is anything to go by.

Here are the championship results from all the WWE and World Heavyweight title matches at the Royal Rumble. Title changes are in bold

1991: Sgt Slaughter beats The Ultimate Warrior (bad example to start, maybe)
1992: Ric Flair wins the strap in the Royal Rumble match (not really a typical championship match)
1993: Bret defends the belt from Razor Ramon (here we go)
1994: Yokozuna defends the belt from The Undertaker (and kills him)
1995: Diesel fought Bret hart to a draw, keeping the belt
1996: Undertaker beat Bret by DQ, title doesn’t move
1997: Shawn defended against Psycho Sid
1998: Shawn defends against the Undertaker
1999: The Rock beat Mankind to win the title
2000: HHH defended the title from Cactus Jack
2001: Kurt Angle defended the title from HHH
2002: Chris Jericho defended the unified title from The Rock
2003: HHH defended the World title from Scott Steiner; Angle defended the WWE title from Benoit
2004: Lesnar defended the WWE title from Bob Holly; HHH and Shawn went to a double-count out for the World title.
2005: JBL defended the World title from Big Show and Angle; HHH defended the WWE title from Orton
2006: John Cena won the WWE title from Edge; Angle defended the World title from Mark Henry
2007: Batista defended the world title from Kennedy; Cena defended the WWE title from Umaga.
2008: Edge defended the World title from Mysterio; Orton defended the WWE title from Hardy
2009: Edge won the WWE title from Hardy; Cena defended the World title from JBL.
2010: Undertaker defended the World title from Mysterio; Sheamus defended the WWE title from Orton.

There have only been five major title changes out of 28 contests. That’s a staggeringly low number, but it exists for the purpose of narrative convenience. The Royal Rumble already has one built-in surprise winner every year, which means it can be used as a safe place for a pleasant title defence. They’ve used this to their advantage many times to push guys who might not necessarily get a PPV title shot, like Kennedy, Umaga, Razor Ramon, Bob Holly, and Mark Henry. It also counts as another notch in the champions’ belt going into Wrestlemania.

Now, does that definitively kill Orton’s chances? Not at all. The Elimination Chamber show a month from now offers another shakeup. Even if Miz is going to headline Wrestlemania as WWE Champion, he might still lose it to Orton at the Rumble and get it back in a month (or on a Raw, who knows). They’ve been known to hot-shot the belt in those two months in order to build the perfect Wrestlemania card. But going by history of the event alone, Orton doesn’t really have much of a chance.

K Sawyer Paul is the author of This is Sports Entertainment: The Secret Diary of Vince McMahon, co-editor of Fair to Flair, and curator at Aggressive Art.